The present invention generally relates to mobile station-based Internet service, and particularly relates to aggregating such service for one or more peripheral devices through the mobile station.
Mobile stations, such as cellular radiotelephone handsets, offer access to an increasing variety of data services that are principally enabled by the evolving packet data networks supporting such handsets. With the increasing data rates and the move toward comprehensive packet data services, such as all IP wireless networks, mobile stations increasingly represent “gateway” devices providing relatively high bandwidth access to the Internet at large, as well as to other Public Data Networks (PDNs) and/or private data networks.
Consequently, mobile stations offer at least the potential for aggregating multiple connections between the Internet (or other external networks) and various other devices, such as laptop computers, Portable Digital Assistants (PDAs), etc. Oftentimes, such devices have limited network connection capabilities, such as direct cable and/or short-range radio or optical network links and thus their mobile connectivity is extended through use of the mobile station's relatively long-range radio link and broad service areas.
In a first approach, a peripheral device connects to the mobile station through a local link, and the mobile station acts essentially as a relay unit by passing traffic and signaling between the supporting network and that peripheral device. One drawback of this approach is that the connection between the mobile station and its supporting network essentially is managed at the peripheral device and thus cannot conveniently be used by the mobile station for anything more than carrying traffic and messages for the peripheral device. Multiple peripheral devices generally equates to multiple Point-to-Point (PPP) sessions between the network and the mobile station.
A second approach overcomes the limitations of the relay mode described above, wherein the mobile station manages traffic for one or more devices based on performing IP address-based routing. That is, the mobile station directs traffic to the appropriate local peripheral device based on the IP address of the incoming data packets. While such an approach permits the mobile station to receive data packets for itself as well as for an attached peripheral, the IP routing requirements impose potentially significant processing overhead. Moreover, with the mobile station operating in this role, it is more or less necessary for the communication client, e.g., the Mobile IP client, to reside in the mobile station rather than in the attached peripheral device. Thus, connecting through the mobile station is more difficult since such connectivity may be somewhat at odds with nominal IP connection operations of the peripheral device.